A Santa Under the Tree
by FlameofSwords
Summary: It was Guilmon's first experience with Christmas and the first time he gave a gift to Santa. Or at least to the person who was playing Santa. {Happy holidays, Jen! And Merry late Christmas...}


Hey Jen! Yeah I know, Christmas was over a couple of days ago, but I always felt that Christmas ends when it's New Year's Day. Well, hopefully you enjoy it either way - made sure it was extra fluffy, just for you!

* * *

 _Last minute preparations_ , Takato thought to himself, sighing as he spun around, wrapping silver tinsel on the tree, _more like barely enough time to actually get this tree done._

Had his family not ran a bakery, the tree would've been decorated a while ago. After all, they had all of the supplies in the closet – not like they needed to wait for a sale on any of the items. But the holidays were always busy, and this year it was probably the busiest year yet, which meant that each day the tree got pushed further and further until it was nine pm on Christmas Eve and he and Guilmon were doing a rush job with the tree. Well, Takato was doing most of the work. Guilmon just kind of removed the leaves off of the tree. Well, at least the mess was small…

"Is that for Santamon?" Guilmon asked suddenly, pointing one of his claws to the Santa ornament that Takato was just about to put on the tree.

"Huh? Oh no, it's just for the tree."

"But then what about Santamon? What does get?"

"Oh, he gets milk and cookies like normal." Takato continued to put the decorations on the tree, this time hanging a snow globe one pretty close to where the star should be.

"But doesn't he always gets milk and cookies?"

"Yeah, it's just tradition," Takato said with a slight smile. He realized he never really told Guilmon much about Christmas, though that was mainly because they just simply liked the idea but didn't care much for actual holiday. Hence why they didn't bother to actually put out any treats for Santa. Too much baking anyways.

"But he always gets milk and cookies. Can't we do something special?"

"Like what?" Takato asked, relaxing himself for once. The tree was done, finally, and all that was left was for his parents to put whatever they had underneath here.

"A present!"

Well, that wasn't too impossible, only question being what to actually give the guy. It wasn't like they had time to go out and buy stuff anyways.

"We can give him that Santamon thingie! The one on the tree!" Guilmon continued, pointing to the Sanra ornament that Takato had hung up previously. "He'll enjoy that!"

Takato looked at it. It wasn't like they needed that ornament – there were a couple others left in the box after all, so giving away this one wouldn't be so bad.

"Yeah, I guess we could," he said, swapping out the Santa one for a snowflake one. "Now let's find some wrapping paper for this."

Within minutes, Takato and Guilmon were on the floor, both doing their respective jobs of watching and wrapping, making Santa's gift. It wasn't much work, although not making the packaging too bulky was hard to do, but it was accomplished in a fairly short amount of time, to which they both placed it right at the foot of the tree, hoping that it gets noticed despite all the other presents that will be in the way.

"Well, time to go to bed," Takato said, moving Guilmon away from the tree.

"But why?"

"The longer we stay up, the longer it'll take for Santa to get to us, silly."

-0-0-0-

Takato stared at Guilmon, who was fast asleep now. Which was good. He wanted to make sure that he didn't wake up and see him – it'll ruin the surprise. All he really had to do was finish this note – which was only taking forever because he had to disguise his handwriting – and put Guilmon's gift under the tree along with the note. And once that's done, he'll be free to enjoy his, hopefully, day off from monster hunting.

"Finally, done," Takato said to himself in a low whisper. Sliding out of the chair, he grabbed the gift he had placed in the mess that was the box of storage. He wanted to change the tag to say Santa instead of Takato, but he figured that it wouldn't be that much of a big deal. Guilmon probably would be sad if he didn't get a gift from him anyways, whereas Santa wasn't something he was expecting.

He folded the letter in half and sneaked his way to the area that had the tree.

 _Looks like Mom and Dad already put our presents out._ Though he didn't touch a single one. He wasn't trying to see his before everyone else's, he was simply trying to make his friend happy.

He looked for the Santa ornament that he placed before, which required him to put the presents that were just recently added, but he found it – thankfully still in it's original condition. In it's place, Takato set the letter down, hoping that it wouldn't get squashed when he moved the presents back to where they originally were. After moving the other gifts to their original position, Takato put Guilmon's gift on top of one addressed to him.

 _Merry Christmas, Guilmon._

-0-0-0-

"Takato, wake up!" Guilmon yelled. He was on the side of the bed, smiling a very wide smile. He really wanted to know if Santa got his gift, didn't he? Well, he couldn't blame him.

"Come on, Takato! You're smiling, I know you're up!"

"I'm getting up, relax buddy."

Takato watched as Guilmon ran out of the room before he even had the chance to rub the sleep out of his eyes. He heard him exclaim about the bread he was given before he heard the sound of boxes moving.

When Takato finally walked into the room, he saw Guilmon with the letter in his hand, his tail wagging back and forth.

"Takato! Santamon got it! Santamon got it! I didn't think he'll ever find it."

"Of course he would," Takato said with a smile. "He's Santa after all."

"Look, he even said I was a good boy. Can we do this again?"

"Sure we can, buddy," Takato said, bending down to around Guilmon's height so he can pet him. "Sure we can."


End file.
